The Phlight of Armenians History - Research Paper Example

In the midst of this, however, dandyism, epitomized by George “Beau” Brummell, flourished as a kind of revolt against the aristocracy and the landed classes of the day. According to Rhonda K. Garelick (1998), dandyism during this period influenced modern concepts of celebrity, well into the late twentieth century. She views dandies as “sexually ambiguous” (3) and as “double-sex beings” (5), implying that dandyism of the eighteenth century had very little to do with gender roles and sexuality.

It has been traditionally understood that dandyism was an idealization of women performed by men, but if Garelick is correct in her estimation of dandies and of dandyism, then that may not be the case. S.R. Cole (2006), however, would disagree with Garelick and takes dandyism in a different direction. He sees dandyism as a class-related phenomenon intertwined with homo-eroticism between men. For Cole, dandyism is “driven by…the desire for aristocratic status”—one that involves an admiring “male gaze” (138).

This perspective does not perceive dandyism as inevitably hostile to women. To the modern person, dandyism appears “unmasculine” and even “effeminate,” but its connection to gender and sexual practices is not as strong as its connection to status and the aristocracy. A discussion about dandyism requires discussing the dandies themselves, especially George “Beau” Brummell, who although he was unattached, was definitely not gay in the modern sense. He was, however, the arbiter of fashion of the time.

One of the most famous quotes regarding Brummell was stated by another dandy, Brummell’s friend Lord Byron: “There are three great men of our age, myself, Napoleon and Brummell, but of we three, the greatest of all is Brummell” (Moers, 24). Not only was Brummell one of the earliest dandies; he was the model for the entire movement. One of the earliest books written about dandies, The Wits and Beaux of Society, by Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton in 1860, labels dandies as “beaux,” after Brummell, which the book describes as “never likely to be quite forgotten” (xvi).

For the Whartons, beaux (or dandies) are all men, even though they previously published a book that focused on well-known women of the time. They describe a dandy as “a cheat…who imposes on his public by his clothes or appearance” (80). Indeed, Brummell’s most recent biographer, Ian Kelly (2006), describes Brummell as “the first celebrity” (1)—the first person to be famous for being famous. Like many celebrities today, Brummell did not have any particular talent other than a penchant for attaching himself to royalty and to the royal court.

Nonetheless, he had a profound influence on British society, and established the modern view of celebrity in the West, even what has become the stereotyped “celebrity pattern of a fall from grace” (Kelly, 1). Brummell was certainly the right man for his time, in the years following the French Revolution, when the British aristocracy felt compelled to justify its existence. The dandy, as expressed through Brummell, was a study in contradictions, and to understand those contradictions, Brummell should be considered in any discussion of the dandy.

As Moers (1960) points out, Camus defined the dandy as “an archetype of the human being in revolt against society” (17), one that had little to do with gender roles and